BFR's

[BaneBlackGuard]

they need to bring BFR's back. they should have done that rather than orbital strikes.

[Petril Carter]

No

[Lunri]

God no those were broken beyond anything in PS1

Edit: Not to say PS1 was ever truely balanced neither is this game.

[BaneBlackGuard]

they weren't broken, they got destroyed faster than tanks, but they were fun, both to pilot and to destroy. I miss my Eclipse. orbital strikes were a terrible idea to bring back.

[Forelan]

BFR?

[Petril Carter]

Originally posted by Forelan:

BFR?

BIG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ROBOT

[Amanoob105]

They already had them in the game, but because only the TR got one and they didn't do anything they ended up getting rid of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt_E-h5Rq_c
Also shown, an old bug where you could clip though a wall.

[BaneBlackGuard]

they were an additional vehicle type in the original Planetside. each faction had it's own 2 person stompy tank robot and 1 person harasser robot with jump jets. my favorite was the Eclipse which was the Vanu 1 person robot. it required a higher skill unlock to be able to use it and was pretty squishy, but it was a helluva lot of fun.

the 2 person BFRs could tank more damage but were slow easy targets. the main advantage they had was height and better view of the battlefield. the 1 person BFRs were relatively quick but still slower than all the other vehicles except when using jumpjets, which was their one advantage. they could jump jet over mountain ranges which was a pretty big strategic benefit, and they could jump on top of walls of bases making them pretty helpful in assaulting bases, but not as much as planes and tanks honestly.

everyone talked about how they were unbalanced but they didn't last as long as tanks and planes had a better height advantage, not to mention planes could just dart away if need be. BFRs kind of held a place between tanks and planes, not as good as either but could do both at the same time. the main reason people opposed them so much is that they came into the game later and min/maxers had already established a status quo and defined the metagame. BFRs shook that up and the elitists threw a hissy fit, so no BFRs in Planetside 2.

[Talomose]

Never played PS1, but BFRs are one of the only things players seemed to universally dislike. You're the first I've seen that liked them. From my understanding, yes, balancing was too hard for them. Early on, they were unstoppable. After nerfs, the heavier one was generally useless and the flight BFR was just annoying because it could fly out of any sudden dangers.

[Scrundle]

BFRs didn't singlehandedly kill Planetside 1, the game was already on the downswing by the time they were introduced. They did hammer the final nail into the coffin though.
In more detail it was the Flight Variants that did it, they were the problem because they broke basic game design; you had a vehicle which was STRONG, had lots of FIREPOWER and was AGILE. Any one of those things? Fine. Any two? Hard to balance but doable in a closed scenario. All three on the same thing? Don't be bloody ridiculous.
That isn't to say the normal variants weren't OP, they just weren't nearly as bad.

But then that raises an interesting point, why are they mechs if they aren't somewhat agile? What's the point of having those legs if they can't jump/crouch/strafe/sprint? So with that in mind how do you balance a mech in a combined arms game?
Do you make them agile and tough but low firepower? Well then what's the point of it, it's just a brick that you can ignore
Do you make them tough, hard hitting but as graceful as a snail? Well then it may as well just be a tank, the legs add nothing
Do you make them agile and hard hitting but soft as ♥♥♥♥♥? What you've got there is a trolling machine, not a serious addition to the game

Loads of people like the concept of big stompy mechs, they're cool and a sci-fi staple. But they just don't balance well in a game where they are mixing with things which aren't big stompy mechs, that's the unfortunate truth.

[BaneBlackGuard]

Originally posted by Sir Talomose:

Never played PS1, but BFRs are one of the only things players seemed to universally dislike. You're the first I've seen that liked them. From my understanding, yes, balancing was too hard for them. Early on, they were unstoppable. After nerfs, the heavier one was generally useless and the flight BFR was just annoying because it could fly out of any sudden dangers.

wasn't as straight forward as that. BFR's had a module on their back that you could crit to knock out shields, in fact you could pretty much knock out any system on the BFR by hitting various parts of it with a bolt driver, WHICH ALMOST ALWAYS HAPPENED. the claims of BFRs being over powered are HUGELY exaggerated. the idea that they were unstoppable just never happened, sorry. As i said, they dropped faster than tanks, partly because they were big easy targets and partly because you could cripple different systems on it which is something you can't do to a tank. imagine being in battle with a tank and suddenly you turret only turns 1/4 the speed as normal. or your targetting and zoom goes away. or you tank starts moving half speed. and each of those is because a sniper hit different parts of your tank. then add on top of it that the only real armor your tank has is a shield, that also can be dropped by a sniper. without shields BFRs had less armor than a Lightning. BFRs, unstoppable ? bwahahaha.

So if tanks worked the way BFRs did, guess where every sniper in PS2 would be aiming..... you guessed it. BFRs were not hated because they were so powerful, they were hated because they changed the META. now every tactic and strategy had to be re-thought to account for the fact there was a hybrid battlefield asset in play, and many people were mighty upset about that. it had nothing to do with BFRs being imbalanced, they were an inconvenience, a challenge to the status quo.

In PS2 BFRs would be even more restricted because most of the landscapes are FAR more restrictive than they were in Planetside. Planetside had a good deal of open countryside around bases. almost all of PS2's bases have obstructing terrain around them. I really think they ought to reconsider bringing BFRs into PS2.

[Talomose]

Originally posted by BaneBlackGuard:

Originally posted by Sir Talomose:

Never played PS1, but BFRs are one of the only things players seemed to universally dislike. You're the first I've seen that liked them. From my understanding, yes, balancing was too hard for them. Early on, they were unstoppable. After nerfs, the heavier one was generally useless and the flight BFR was just annoying because it could fly out of any sudden dangers.

wasn't as straight forward as that. BFR's had a module on their back that you could crit to knock out shields, in fact you could pretty much knock out any system on the BFR by hitting various parts of it with a bolt driver, WHICH ALMOST ALWAYS HAPPENED. the claims of BFRs being over powered are HUGELY exaggerated. the idea that they were unstoppable just never happened, sorry. As i said, they dropped faster than tanks, partly because they were big easy targets and partly because you could cripple different systems on it which is something you can't do to a tank. imagine being in battle with a tank and suddenly you turret only turns 1/4 the speed as normal. or your targetting and zoom goes away. or you tank starts moving half speed. and each of those is because a sniper hit different parts of your tank. then add on top of it that the only real armor your tank has is a shield, that also can be dropped by a sniper. without shields BFRs had less armor than a Lightning. BFRs, unstoppable ? bwahahaha.

So if tanks worked the way BFRs did, guess where every sniper in PS2 would be aiming..... you guessed it. BFRs were not hated because they were so powerful, they were hated because they changed the META. now every tactic and strategy had to be re-thought to account for the fact there was a hybrid battlefield asset in play, and many people were mighty upset about that. it had nothing to do with BFRs being imbalanced, they were an inconvenience, a challenge to the status quo.

In PS2 BFRs would be even more restricted because most of the landscapes are FAR more restrictive than they were in Planetside. Planetside had a good deal of open countryside around bases. almost all of PS2's bases have obstructing terrain around them. I really think they ought to reconsider bringing BFRs into PS2.

I'm just not getting that from other people's accounts. It's more that adding them in showed that they just didn't fit in any meaningful way with the meta. Like one of those block toys where you have to match the shapes, you got a square, star, and triangle, but then I give you a circle piece without a slot to match. It's cool to have an extra block except what do you do with it?

PS2 seems to struggle with this as well. Adding just one thing doesn't fit when it needs a system or revamp to support it.

[BaneBlackGuard]

Originally posted by Sir Talomose:

Originally posted by BaneBlackGuard:

wasn't as straight forward as that. BFR's had a module on their back that you could crit to knock out shields, in fact you could pretty much knock out any system on the BFR by hitting various parts of it with a bolt driver, WHICH ALMOST ALWAYS HAPPENED. the claims of BFRs being over powered are HUGELY exaggerated. the idea that they were unstoppable just never happened, sorry. As i said, they dropped faster than tanks, partly because they were big easy targets and partly because you could cripple different systems on it which is something you can't do to a tank. imagine being in battle with a tank and suddenly you turret only turns 1/4 the speed as normal. or your targetting and zoom goes away. or you tank starts moving half speed. and each of those is because a sniper hit different parts of your tank. then add on top of it that the only real armor your tank has is a shield, that also can be dropped by a sniper. without shields BFRs had less armor than a Lightning. BFRs, unstoppable ? bwahahaha.

So if tanks worked the way BFRs did, guess where every sniper in PS2 would be aiming..... you guessed it. BFRs were not hated because they were so powerful, they were hated because they changed the META. now every tactic and strategy had to be re-thought to account for the fact there was a hybrid battlefield asset in play, and many people were mighty upset about that. it had nothing to do with BFRs being imbalanced, they were an inconvenience, a challenge to the status quo.

In PS2 BFRs would be even more restricted because most of the landscapes are FAR more restrictive than they were in Planetside. Planetside had a good deal of open countryside around bases. almost all of PS2's bases have obstructing terrain around them. I really think they ought to reconsider bringing BFRs into PS2.

I'm just not getting that from other people's accounts. It's more that adding them in showed that they just didn't fit in any meaningful way with the meta. Like one of those block toys where you have to match the shapes, you got a square, star, and triangle, but then I give you a circle piece without a slot to match. It's cool to have an extra block except what do you do with it?

PS2 seems to struggle with this as well. Adding just one thing doesn't fit when it needs a system or revamp to support it.

the thing that didn't belong was orbital strikes, yet it was there, AND they've brought it back in PS2. the caverns were a bit odd and didn't seem to fit, I'll grant you that, but the BFRs themselves were just another vehicle. they fit as much as the flails or any other vehicle for that matter. sure, people that didn't like them aren't GOING to say "i didn't like them because i was happy with the existing META and didn't want it to change" they are going to say "BFRs sucked donkey ballz, good riddance"

[| TajMahBalls |]

Idiots say those were broken.

Hey why not lets just balance them ya know?

[Xilo The Odd]

im sure its crossed DBG's mind, but i doubt its a feature they will just randomly bring in one day. there will be a lot of testing on their end before we even see it in the PTS, and after that a lot of QA to make sure it'll actually WORK. unlike orbital strikes or when they tried to put in the courtium tap.

[Scrundle]

The problem, as I pointed out, is how exactly do you balance a giant robot in a game which already has tanks? You either make the mech pointless or you make the tanks obsolete. Is the Mech meant to be a super-tank or is it meant to be equivalent to tank that can go anywhere with limited firepower? You either make MBTs worthless or you're introducing a worthless new vehicle.

What exactly do you want the BFRs to do?
The only way to avoid stepping on the toes of the existing MBTs is to focus on the agility aspect of the BFRs and reading that should already be setting warning sirens off for you because it was Flight Variants that were the issue originally on account of having agility and firepower combined, so, in order to counteract that you limit their firepower and.. congratulations, you've designed a worthless pointless NTU-sink, at least it looks cool I guess?

I want BFRs back in Planetside 2, I really really would love to see them included, I cannot however think of a way to bring them to the game without them either being massively overpowered, making MBTs obsolete or being completely pointless.
Please explain how you would solve this problem.

And yes I agree with you on the OS issue, never needed to be brought back, at least you have to build a little base first now though.